Love Was The Reason
by pseudonym55
Summary: Why did Mal linger in Cobb's subconscious?  Love. That's why Arthur and Ariadne can't be together, and they both know it. One-Shot, ArthurAriadne


There are reasons—reasons only Cobb, perhaps, can completely understand—that the Architect and Point Man don't allow themselves one another. They understood, as did Dom, that dreams could more easily become reality because in them you could experience perfection—something only love could give you in reality. Deep love becomes the overlap, and that is when reality is blurred and disasters occur.

Ariadne was beautiful, smart…the perfect Architect. The perfect woman, really. But if Mal and Dom had taught them anything, it was that love and attachment had a way of ruining you in this line of business. Extraction and Inception aren't jobs you simply fall into. There isn't an office with regular hours and there is no leaving work behind. You work jobs with your life, and no one can come out unscathed.

Ariadne wouldn't let them be scarred, and neither would Arthur. The issues that happened with Dom and Mal could not happen to them.

They only worked together once after the Fisher job. It was a simple extraction—stealing an idea for an electric car from one of Europe's top automobile engineers. It was a quick job.

On that job the Point Man and the Architect worked closer and grew more attached, staying long after work was over simply to talk and discuss more than just the mission. They understood each other in reality, not just dreams. Somehow, in those midnight hours, with intertwined fingers and facts about their childhood, Ariadne and Arthur became two halves of a whole.

(Ariadne still shudders when she remembers Mal using those same words)

But during that job, fear edged into their subconscious. Ariadne remembered what it felt like to have the projection of the supposedly lovely woman reveal herself out of the subconscious of her guilty, haunted husband and kill mercilessly, to rage toward Ariadne with a broken champagne glass. Arthur had been there on jobs when Mal showed up to play the part of saboteur. He had been tortured by her to get to Cobb, doubted his best friend's sanity and ability at times, because of Mal.

And Arthur knew love was the reason.

Love created attachment, the inability to let someone go when they were gone. Though Cobb's torment had been built of guilt, they knew love itself had to take some of the blame. And though neither could imagine the other projecting them that way in the dreamscape, they knew that it was possible.

Anything was possible in the dreamscape.

That was why, when he followed her out of the hospital where the extraction had taken place, she turned in all her professionalism, all her talent, and told him:

"We can't do this anymore. I love you, more than anything, but we can't do this. We can't end up like Mal and Cobb."

And after a brief stare,

"Of course."

Though it hurt, he understood. Arthur nodded, turned, and walked away forever.

After that, they never worked together again. All they were left to remember was time, and a kiss. There were no more late nights spent discussing Escher, no romantic parallels to ancient Greek mythology, no more quick kisses meant to distract projections. Though it hurt, they had to part.

Arthur and Ariadne lived their lives in the same world, in the same dark corners of the planet that many looked right at and couldn't see. They lived their lives not as the Architect and the Point Man that had fallen in love, but only as Arthur and Ariadne, the only dream builders that refused to be or even work together despite the begging of clients more powerful and wealthy than they could imagine.

They never forgot each other, of course. As they wandered from job to job, elements of the other stayed entrenched in their work and their subconscious. The dreams Ariadne built invariably included the Penrose steps, a remnant of the first dream they shared. Arthur's was far less obvious; as the point man, he didn't design dreams. But one could find, randomly located in the dreams he dreamed, a simple, golden bishop.

Fifty years later, they lay alone in their respective cities (Paris for her, New York for him). They were an old man and an old woman, filled with regret, waiting to die alone.

As they took their last breaths, they each saw something. A hallucination, a dream…neither knew.

Ariadne saw flashes of dark brown eyes, an Armani suit, and a red loaded die, waiting on the bench of a hotel she barely recalls.

Arthur saw an empty warehouse (save two lawn chairs) with a patterned scarf, caramel hair, and a golden bishop.

And thousands of miles away from one another, alone and separate, they close their eyes to enter the final, eternal dream, alone and full of regret with nothing but flashes of a life they could have had playing in their subconscious.


End file.
